The 18th session of the US Chess School opened
with a bang: As IM Greg Shahade, the school's organizer, and GM Alejandro
Ramirez, the instructor for the day, moved a table with laptop and projector,
the table broke, with the projector almost following Greg's blueberries onto
the floor. Thanks to the quick reflexes of all concerned (and Greg's liberal
interpretation of the 10-second rule) all important items escaped lasting harm.

The US Chess School group hard at work, Photo Elizabeth Spiegel

The US Chess School, which first met in 2006, is a program designed to provide
top-level instruction for the strongest young players in the country. The
school is made possible by the generous support of Jim Roberts and the
Schein-Friedman foundation: These individuals and their supporters are making a
lasting contribution to the infrastructure of chess training in the USA. This
edition was also indebted to the support of the Marshall Chess Club, which
served as an excellent venue. Usually, a single distinguished trainer conducts
the session; multiple star Grandmasters have assumed this role at least once.
For this New York City session, IM Shahade decided on something else: A
different Grandmaster would lead each day, offering students a variety of
perspectives and styles. Greg also assumed a great deal of the coaching
responsibilities himself.
Day 1

GM Alejandro Ramirez

After brief introductions, GM Alejandro Ramirez got directly
to work. He opened the day with three puzzles, his preferred introduction to a
day of coaching. These incorporated a mixture of endgame and geometric themes,
with students working toward a different result in each study. Each one was
ultimately solved, either through individual effort or a collective process. GM
Ramirez also used this time to set forth his expectations for the day: If a
position was concrete, students were not to reply with generalizations;
precision and calculation were required. "You're not beginners, so I don't have
to tell you not to call out the first move in your head. Calculate."

After the students had warmed up, GM Ramirez moved into the
theme for the week: Learning from your mistakes. IM Shahade had directed each
trainer to focus on tough losses and lessons learned. Alejandro started with
one of the most memorable games of his career. "There was a lot of hype
surrounding this game, because it was first time (my opponent) was playing in
the Olympiad."Anand,Viswanathan (2781) - Ramirez Alvarez,Alejandro (2519)

Calvia ol
(Men) Mallorca (2), 16.10.2004Alejandro started by discussing his
first problem: Which opening to play against his illustrious opponent? The
Sveshnikov, then his main opening, was going through a crisis ("The
Sveshnikov loves to go into crisis", he mused). Playing the Dragon against
Anand was, in his eyes, tantamount to a forced loss. But he had some ideas in
the French Defense, and chose this bd 1 encounter between India and Costa Rica
to play 1...e6 for the first time. 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.e5 c5 5.a3
Bxc3+ 6.bxc3 Ne7 7.Qg4 0-0 8.Bd3 Nbc6 9.Qh5 Alejandro mentioned here that
students should understand why they are making theoretical moves in the
opening; this mate in 1 threat, for example, is prophylaxis against ...f5. 9...Ng6
10.Nf3 Qc7 11.Be3 Alejandro used this move to probe the students' understanding:
What does this do, other than guard against ...cxd4 cxd4 ...Nxd4 Nxd4 ...Qc3+?
By guarding f2, he explained, this makes Ng5 a threat: 11...c4 This
defends indirectly against Ng5; now it can be met by ...h6. [11...-- 12.Ng5 h6
13.Nxf7 Qxf7 Now g6 hangs, and because of Be3, black cannot play ...Qxf2+.] 12.Bxg6
[12.Ng5? h6 13.Nxf7 cxd3] 12...fxg6 13.Qg4 Bd7 14.h4 Rf5 This move
plans to meet h5 with taking on h5 and trading off the h1 rook immediately. 15.Qh3!?Interestingly, Alejandro pinpointed this as an example of a super GM
mistake. "A bad move, but a very good idea." Anand is preparing
Ng1-e2, and also thinking about pushing his kingside pawns. Black now has an
important decision to make. Should black double rooks on the f-file, or begin
with .. Qa5? Alejandro's choice in the game led to serious problems. After the
game, James Black asked why white couldn't play the knight retreat in the game
a move earlier. Alejandro indicated that he should do so, and referenced the
following game: Bacrot,E-Apicella,M/FRA t-ch final 2004 15.Ng1!? Qa5 16.Ne2
Raf8 17.Kd2 Ne7 18.Ng3 Rxf2+ 19.Bxf2 Rxf2+ 20.Ne2 Nf5 21.Raf1 Rxf1 22.Rxf1 Qxa3
23.Qg5 Be8 24.Nf4ƒ Bacrot,E-Apicella,M/FRA t-ch final 2004/1-0 (52);

15...Raf8

[15...Qa5! 16.Kd2 Raf8 is the key improvement. In the game, white
implemented the idea of Ng1-e2, solidifying c3 while unblocking his kingside
pawns. This more forcing move order prevents white from carrying out his plan
so easily: 17.Ng1? fails to 17...Rxf2+! 18.Bxf2 Rxf2+ 19.Ne2 Nxd4 and black is
better. Note the key difference: In the game, white was ready to meet ...Qa5
with Ne2 (rather than Kd2). To force Kd2, black had to play ...Qa4, but without
his Queen pinning the c3 pawn in the game, the ...Nxd4 shot was impossible.]

16.Ng1!
Qa5 17.Ne2

See the previous note for why this is so important.

17...Qa4
18.Kd2 Here Alejandro realized the situation was dire. "White will
play f4, g4, h5, and crush me." He cautioned students against relying on
engine evaluations in closed games: "If you give this to the computer, it
will prefer black; even today, they don't understand many closed positions. . .
I think black is strategically lost". He went on to note the absence of a
clear plan for black, and observed that in addition to being slow, aiming for
...b5-b4 is not particularly dangerous.

18...Rxf2!?

Black does this
anyway, but now the exchange sacrifice is insufficient.

For his
second loss, Alejandro turned to the worst tournament of his chess career: The
B group at Wijk Aan Zee. He introduced Ramirez-Karjakin by discussing the value
of the exchange. "You have all been to camps and seen games where one side
sacrifices the exchange and wins a beautiful positional game with no
resistance. In real life it is not always like that. . ."Ramirez Alvarez,Alejandro (2507) - Karjakin,Sergey (2599) [B90]

At
this point, Alejandro commented on the position's strategic ideas: A fight for
d5 will develop. For this reason, Bg5xf6 is a natural idea, removing a piece
that defends that square. In general, white wants to end up with a piece rather
than pawn on d5. However, there is an exception: If his a-pawn is on a5, white
may want to play exd5 with a queenside bind. If white plays this way, black can
look for kingside counterplay with ...f5/...e4/...Ne5, but it won't necessarily
work. 10...h6

Preventing Bg5

11.Re1 Nc6 12.Be3

"No idea why
I played this. . . not correct".

12...Nb4 13.Bxe6 fxe6 14.a5 Rc8 15.Ra4
Nc6 16.Bb6 Qe8 17.Qd3 Nh5

Alejandro identified this moment as an indication
something had gone wrong, since he is forced to play an unpleasant move. The
retreat Be3 looks ugly, while the move played in the game undefends the rook on
a4. . .

18.Ne2 Nd4 19.Nfxd4 Qxa4 20.Nxe6

White has sacrificed the
exchange. His idea was that black will struggle to activate his rooks, and the
position has some visual appeal for white: Alejandro was intending to bring his
knight to d5, meet ...Nxd5 with exd5, put the other knight on the new e4
outpost, and push on the queenside with c4-c5. But Karjakin had other ideas!

20...Rf7
21.Nc7 Nf6 22.Nc3 Qc6 23.N7d5 Nxd5 24.exd5 Qc4!

A strong move. With the
queens on the board, white's compensation is sufficient, but a queen trade
makes it easier for black to activate his rooks. As Alejandro said, "An exchange
is still an exchange!"

Lessons:
Do not underestimate the activity of a rook; once one rook reached the back
rank white could not successfully defend against all the threats. 0-1After this
long fight, Alejandro turned to chess preparation and a one-sided loss. In the
same unsuccessful tournament, he was paired with American GM Alex Onischuk as
black. He had previously used a Benko sideline to draw easily as black against
GM Moiseenko. When given the chance, he decided to repeat the line against an
extremely well-prepared Grandmaster. I have incorporated some of GM Postny's
notes in CBM in this game.

7...bxa4 According to Alejandro, this is now
considered slightly better.

8.Bd3 g6 9.Nbd2 Bg7 10.Nc4 0-0 11.0-0 Bb7!

At
the time, computers did not mind this position for black, and Alejandro had
some ideas he thought were interesting. This move brings up an important
position. Black has only one idea: ...f5. How should white deal with it? The
answer was a surprising one: He should force it. If black is permitted to
complete development and improve his position, ...f5 will only gain in
strength. Therefore, white should force the move, and the ensuing opening of
the position, while the second player is still underdeveloped.

12.Qd2! f5

otherwise 13.Qf4 and d6
is weak.

13.exf5 Bxd5 14.Be2 Bxc4?!

Black wants to eliminate the strong
knight, but now white will dominate the light squares.

15.Bxc4 Nc6

After15...Bxb2? 16.Rad1 black's position is nearly
collapsing.

16.Rad1

After 16.fxg6 hxg6 17.Qd3 Ne7 18.Bxa6 d5 black is
fine.

16...Ne5 17.Nxe5 Bxe5 18.fxg6 hxg6 19.f4N

19.Qh6 Qf6 20.Rd3 Rad8
21.b3 a5 22.Bd5 Bd4 23.Rh3 Qg7 24.g3 Be5 25.Kg2 Bd4 26.Re1 Rde8 27.Rd1 ½-½
Moiseenko,A-Ramirez Alvarez,A/Dallas 2004/CBM 105 (27) was Alejandro's original
game in this line. However, his opponent in this game came prepared with a
major improvement.

Lessons: Just
because something worked once doesn't mean it will work again! One way to catch
GMs is to find an improvement on a line they used in a win or easy draw as
black. 1-0After lunch,
IM Greg Shahade began his first session. Greg brings a unique perspective to
the US Chess School. Having recently returned from a competitive chess hiatus,
he is currently studying intensively and competing in major tournaments. Like
the students, he is in a stage of his life where chess improvement is a primary
goal. He began by inquiring about study habits, having the students talk
briefly about how long they studied each day and what they worked on.

Luke Harmon-Velotti, Photo Elizabeth Spiegel

Luke
Harmon-Velotti studies 4-5 hours a day over the summer, maybe 2 hours a day
during the school year. He identified openings as his main weakness, and works
on them by looking at his lines in the database and aiming to come up with
improvements or new ideas. When Greg asked the students how many of them saw
openings as their main problem, he was relieved to see only two raise their
hands; Greg thinks many young players devote too much attention to this phase.
He was surprised to hear Luke's self-assessment, and thought Luke's openings
were quite good. Luke believes his tactics are stronger than his positional
understanding, and enjoyed studying Volokitin and Grabinsky's "Perfect Your
Chess".

Christopher Wu, Photo Elizabeth Spiegel

Christopher
Wu consistently studies 2-3 hours a day. He works through books, solves
puzzles, and studies openings; he was one of those who believed he was weak in
this stage. According to Christopher, his repertoire only contains "a couple
not bad lines" and needed to be broadened. Greg begged to differ: He pointed
out that "Some top players always play the same stuff", implying that a narrow
repertoire was far from the end of the world.

Deepak Aaron
studies 3-4 hours a day during the summer, and 1-2 during the school year. He
sees his weakness as Closed positions. This was a surprise for Greg, given that
he plays the ...a6 Slav against 1.d4! Deepak's chosen study methods include game
analysis and ICC.

James Black, Photo Elizabeth Spiegel

James Black
earned high marks for his work ethic: He studies three hours on school days, six
hours on summer days or weekends. He studies GM games, solves endgame training
positions, and plays through games in New in Chess or Chessbase magazine. When
Greg asked him about his weaknesses, James was unsure; this started a recurring
theme throughout the week with basically every student. Greg tries to have
students identify weaknesses as specifically as possible, so that they will be
able to rectify them through training and study. Christopher Gu
studies 3-5 hours a day, during which he solves tactics problems and studies
his openings. He identified time pressure as a primary weakness.Arthur Shen
provided probably the most open-ended answer to Greg's effort to have students
quantify their study time: "It depends if I feel like it!" Some days, this
means not at all; other days, it may mean quite a bit. He identified his
weaknesses as misevaluating positions and difficulty playing positions which
are new for him.

Alex Ostrovskiy and Arthur Shen

Alex
Ostrovskiy had the widest range in his routine: Some days he might not touch
chess, but on other days he can study for eight hours. He trains with Yusupov and
Dvoretsky books, which can make him feel like he "doesn't know anything". This
was a repeated theme: Greg mentioned several times that Dvoretsky books, while
being very instructive, can make even the strongest players scratch their
heads. Dvoretsky's Analytical Manual was singled out in this regard.Once the
students had described their study habits, Greg presented a mini-lesson with a
series of examples from his own games, all pertaining to the same theme.

Shankland-Shahade, 2012 Black to
play, 12...Qd7 makes sense here. Instead Greg played 12...e4, which he identified
as a serious mistake. Play continued 13.dxe4 Bxe4 14.Qa4; with Rfd1 coming next
this is very bad for black. Shankland went on to win.Zlotnikov - Shahade, Manhattan 2011

Instead of a move like ...Qc7 or ...axb4, Greg chose 12...b6, a move
that came in for some of his harshest criticism of the week. After 13.Nd4 Be4
14.Nc3 white was already much better. A recurring theme throughout the USCS was
Greg's self-critical approach to his mistakes - he worked to identify their
sources as specifically as possible. He did this for two reasons: Ultimately
correcting them, and supporting the development of this type of metacognition
in the students.De Fotis - Shahade, Continental Class
2011

Greg also showed this position (previously mentioned on CLO in his article on the Continental Class) Black has some useful moves, notably 15...Qc7 and 15...Qe7. Instead, Greg
chose 15...Ne4 after which his opponent can play Qc2, and is threatening f3 followed by Nxc5. Like Greg's previous mistake in this game, he said this move "made
my opponent's life easy by making forcing moves".

After showing students these (and
other positions), Greg mentioned that all of the mistakes he had discussed
shared a common theme, and invited students to guess.

Answer:
"I have a disease when I play chess. . ." Greg began. He explained that he is
"obsessed with moves that do something", even when it would be more appropriate
to maintain tension. (Hide Solution)

In the future, he resolved to be very careful each time he
made a forcing move, knowing that he has the tendency to make forcing moves
when they are not demanded by the position.
Look for the second series in Matan's write up from the US Chess School later this month and find out more about the program at uschessschool.com.